The COVID-19 pandemic forced education systems to move to remote learning using online platforms. However, simply transferring traditional classroom teaching online proved largely ineffective and failed to meet educational goals. It lacked collaborative learning and activities and confined both teachers and students to inflexible routines. In contrast, a blended learning approach that combined online video lessons students could access independently with guidance from local teachers was a more efficient system and better supported self-organized learning at each student's own pace. The pandemic accelerated the need to explore alternative, science-backed learning methods to traditional schooling and opened minds to continuing this transition going forward.

1. Education
Post-COVID
The downfall of traditional education or the rise
of science-backed learning?

2. Introduction
While COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on everything, it gave an
ultimatum to the education sector. To continue the traditional
schooling system, there was only one way - remote teaching and
learning. The limitations posed by this method are well known.
Traditional education in the form of lecturing a classroom of students
in real time poses practical and technical challenges which over a
period of time can contribute to a decline in the most fundamental
aspects of education. However, the introduction of virtual classrooms
and online schooling has definitely opened a door to newer
possibilities using technological tools.

3. Traditional Education In Online Form
● The pandemic pushed the education system from one extreme to
another when the traditional schooling system moved onto online
platforms like Google Meet and Zoom.
● There were very few goals being met with this move. For one, it
allowed the educational institutions to continue their processes. New
students were welcomed, lessons were read and homework was more
or less done.
● The idea of collaborative learning and activities died a sad death in the
process even as teachers tried to integrate various activities into the
curriculum.
blend-ed.com

4. What exactly went wrong?
● We cannot condemn online learning and the technological tools
for the regression in learning potential, performance and
effectiveness over the pandemic period.
● The culprit here is how the system tried to adapt the traditional
offline schooling to online platforms. Confining the teacher and
the students to a web platform during prescribed hours was more
or less chaotic, especially in elementary classes.

5. ● This poses problems at several levels in the education system
which affects the learning process.
● The traditional schooling system was designed to work in a
physical space in the presence and motivation of the teacher.
● Although even this is outdated for the young learners in this era,
the traditional system being ancient, reducing the classrooms to
virtual meetings curbed the hope for an effective alternative to
traditional education even further in the pandemic scenario.

6. How did it affect students and teachers?
● Traditional education system sans the physical classroom is a
deficient system. Largely a failure, this has reduced the overall
quality of the student population.
● Teachers everywhere have voiced about how teaching a class
through video conferencing could never measure up to the
classroom experience.
● There were technological difficulties of both teachers and students
getting used to the new modes of teaching and learning as well as
limitations in time and convenience.

7. ● Live sessions bound the students to a routine of appearing online at a
given time, regardless of their mental readiness to attend a class on a
gadget. The bandwidth of both teachers and students were
underused in this system.
● With less opportunities to make learning fun and no interaction
between classmates, the very idea of this routine is a drab alternative
for school-going children. Not to mention the co-curricular activities
that fell behind. The limitations in this method reduced the learning
capacity of the students as well as gave them little motivation to
explore further on the subjects.

8. ● Students also experienced
limitations in the interaction with
their teachers, in order to clarify
doubts or ask questions. There
was no space for curiosity-driven
interactions or learning.
Throughout the class time,
students were literally muted to
prevent a fussy video conference,
making live online classes a one
way road.

10. Yes!
● A blended learning system was more or less adopted in many
places to replace the traditional classroom during the pandemic
time, where the students were provided with video classes of their
lessons created with attractive backdrops to suit the age group, and
teaching was a performance rather than a lecture, encouraging the
students to join in at their own time and pace.
● Meanwhile, students received guidance, tasks and assignments
from the teachers at the local schools they were enrolled in,
integrating a human element into the system, to facilitate the young
learners in their learning journey.

11. ● This blended approach is more efficient in many aspects in
comparison to the virtualization of the traditional education
system.
● For one, it creates a self-organized learning environment,
exposing the students to technological resources to gather their
knowledge through.
● Secondly, it requires the students to expand their abilities to
thrive on internal inspiration and stay motivated as the
instructor-led part of the learning had happened outside
classroom structures during the pandemic.

12. ● It also did away with the competitive
mindset, allowing the students the
space to discover their capacities.
● In contrast to the online live
classes,instead of moulding their
minds to suit the routine and take
the classes, they could mould the
time and pace to suit their mind and
put their cognitive abilities to the
best potential under a stress-free
environment.

13. The future is here already…
… as the pandemic hastened the need to explore and test various
learning methods to keep the school years going on, as halting
education was not practical even in the worst of times, especially
with cutting edge technology available. COVID-19 has certainly
opened up people’s minds to alternatives to the traditional
schooling system and undoubtedly, now is the best time to test and
implement more science-backed methods of pedagogy.

14. blend-ed.com
Learning in more dimensions.